a fresh Brigade and ours was withdrawn and held as a reserve.

[Illustration: Scenes On The River Tigris.]

[Illustration: A Post On The Tigris.]

Before leaving the trenches, however, the Colonel ordered two
officer's patrols to go out the last night to examine the enemy's wire
and locate, if possible, the position of their machine guns, thinking
thus to assist the attack of the coming Brigade. Of these patrols one
was led by Lieut. Cowie and met with rather exciting adventures. Cowie
and two scouts crawled across "No Man's Land" to within 20 yards of
the Turkish trench without mishap. Then creeping along the enemy's
wire they spotted a machine gun with the team standing beside it.
Right into this group the three threw three grenades, wounding several
Turks as we afterwards learned. Inevitably the alarm was given, rifle
fire broke out in all directions and, before the patrol could make
good their escape, Cowie and one of his men were hit. The Turks saw
the two figures lying close to their own wire, jumped the parapet, and
made both prisoners, and carried them within their lines. They were
well treated, if not well fed, by their captors, and two days later
when the retirement began were moved out of the Turkish hospital on to
a steamer. This boat was one of two that when trying to escape some
days later up the Tigris were captured, after a short but severe
engagement, by our gunboats. Cowie, in the confusion of the fight,
forced the pilot of his steamer to run her aground and, though most
of the Turks effected their escape, Cowie and his orderly instead of
continuing their journey to Aleppo, found themselves at General
Headquarters attended to by several surgeons and Intelligence
Officers, anxious to dress their wounds and hear their story.

On the 22nd the attack was delivered by a battalion of Highlanders and
a Punjabi battalion. Under a heavy artillery bombardment they gained
the enemy's first line without much loss. Then after severe fighting
they captured the enemy's second line and consolidated their position.
The Turks made several counter attacks and though nothing could move
the Highlanders, the position on the left was not quite secure. Our
battalion was therefore ordered back to the trenches, and the Colonel
obtained leave to send two platoons under Captain Young across to the
Turkish position in order to strengthen the left of our new line.
Captain Young was wounded, but the two platoons that night and